Years to Recover From
by amanuenses
Summary: Daryl's short, hard life hasn't left him with much he'd like to remember, but forgetting doesn't come naturally either. This story will consist of anecdotes from the past and interpolations of familiar scenes from the present in no particular order or chronology. Daryl-centric, other characters will come and go.
1. all the wrong directions

"It's the easiest thing in the world, little brother."

Merle slung an arm around him, propelling them forward. Daryl matched his brother's stride. He could feel Merle looking at him but knew better than to look back. "You put your dick in her pussy and that's all there is to it. Think you can do that, little brother?"

Daryl grunted.

"Well, can you? Or else-" Merle smacked his crotch, Daryl slapped his hand away – "you got another pussy in there, Darlena? Cos that's all you got if your dick don't work right. Tell me you ain't a pussy."

He moved to hit his groin again, but this time Daryl was too quick for him. He dodged to the side. "I ain't no pussy," he told Merle.

"That's right, baby brother. You stick it in her then you're a man." Merle wrapped his arm around Daryl again. "See I had my doubts about you, seems like fifteen's a mighty old age to hit without gettin' no pussy. Started to wonder if you were like one of them fruitcakes paradin' around with their dicks tied together. But Merle's gonna take care of you. Merle's gonna give you the time of your life."

Merle didn't seem to expect an answer this time, so Daryl let himself be pulled along in silence. He knew where they were going, of course. His brother went there most Friday nights, if he wasn't in jail. He'd even picked Merle up there, when his brother had got too drunk or too high or too rough and the whores had thrown him out on his ass. He'd pull up his brother's pants and dump him in the back of the truck, drive him home before Merle realized where he was.

It was a shitty whorehouse, not like the ones in the movies. Just a motel, really, with a different girl behind each door. Daryl hung back while Merle pounded on the door to Number Eleven. He was buzzed but not drunk, just a couple beers on an empty stomach.

The door opened but Daryl couldn't see who was behind it, his brother's frame blocked the doorway.

"Personal favor," Merle was saying. "Get my baby brother's dick wet."

"How old is he?" the unseen woman demanded.

"He's fifteen, beautiful age, I tell ya."

"Aw, Merle," the woman said.

"He'll beg for it if I ask him to. Want me to make him beg?"

"You got any drugs?" she asked.

"I might."

"Show me."

Merle put his hand in his pocket and pulled something out of it.

"Fine."

Merle stepped back and pulled Daryl forward. "Monica, this is my baby brother Daryl. Daryl, this is the lady who's gonna make you a man."

Monica was in her thirties, with brassy red hair from a bottle. She had nails long like talons, painted blood red. Daryl thought she looked like a bird of prey.

"C'mon in, Daryl," she drawled. Merle shoved him forward into the dimly lit room, darker than it was outside under the stars. She had one of those lava lamps, glowing pink from a table. Daryl stood stupidly in the center of the room. He heard the door close and turned round. Merle was settling in to a sagging armchair.

"You stayin'?" he said uncertainly.

"Course I am." Merle favored him with a broad grin. "Don't count less I'm here to see it. Eye witness. You go on now."

Monica was sitting on the bed. She sized Daryl up, her eyes indifferent, and patted the space next to her.

"You go on now," Merle said.

Daryl crossed the few steps to the bed and sat down next to her. He shoulda gotten drunker. He shoulda asked for the cocaine. Cos he wasn't feeling the slightest bit of anything close to arousal and he was gonna fuck this up in front of Merle, who'd call him a pussy or a fucking faggot for the rest of his life.

Monica wasn't doing anything, just looking at him without much interest.

"Do you… am I s'posed to kiss ya or something?" Daryl said at last. He heard Merle guffaw.

"No kid, you don't have kiss me," Monica said. She pulled down the straps of her slip and her breasts, large and terrifying, popped into view. Daryl stared at them. "Those ain't real, little brother," he could hear Merle saying, but all he could do was gape at the tits and wonder what he was supposed to do with them.

Monica sighed noisily. She grabbed his hands and placed them on her breasts, forcing him to squeeze them. Daryl didn't like the way they felt under his hands, cold and unyielding. He let go as soon as Monica let him. She unzipped his jeans and slid her hand inside. He wasn't hard. She began to pump him, and her hand was painfully dry against his skin. Daryl could hear Merle laughing. _Pussy. _He squeezed his eyes shut and cast his mind about for something, anything… He remembered one of Merle's pornos, the one where it was two girls. There weren't any whips or huge cocks, and he'd liked watching them go down on each other. It worked, finally. His dick, stupid thing, did what it was supposed to do and got hard. Monica didn't waste any time, thankfully. She mounted him and did most of the work, moving up and down. Daryl kept his eyes shut. Whenever he moved, her breasts collided with his head, and he found it was best to keep still.

In the end, the discomfort of it made him lose focus on the two girls licking each other's cunts and he went soft. But he screwed up his face anyway and groaned like he'd come hard. He opened his eyes just in time to see Merle, across the room, furiously jerking off with a glazed expression on his face, come all over Monica's armchair.

Monica got off him. "There you go, kid," she said, fixing her slip. "All grown up now." Daryl zipped his jeans as Merle, across the room, did the same. When Merle walked over to him, there were tears in his eyes. "Knew you could do it, little brother. Knew you weren't no pussy." Daryl let Merle hug him tightly.

"Go on home now," Merle said. "Me and Monica got stuff to talk about."

The drugs were back out but Daryl didn't care anymore. He began the walk back home in the dark. He was nearly there when he had to double over and puke violently. Nothing but beer came up but his stomach heaved painfully for another minute or two. He wanted to cry. At least he wouldn't have to thank Merle til the morning.

XX

Before he lit off for good, Merle took him back there, to the whorehouse, a couple more times. But he didn't try to watch again. Usually Daryl paid the girls to keep their mouths shut that he never so much as touched them. There was one girl he sort of liked, Marine she said her name was. She was so skinny her bones jutted out and she had track marks on her arms, but she had the sweetest Georgia drawl and hair like cornsilk. Not much older than him. She was the only one he ever came inside of and she never tried to take his shirt off. One day he went to see her and a different girl told him she was dead, overdosed two days ago.

When he dreamed it was about no one in particular. Couldn't give 'em a face. Hell, he couldn't have said if they were male or female. But it was always soft hands, soft lips, soft voices.

That's what he was dreaming about when he came to on the floor of his room one night. Couldn't remember how he'd got there, might've been smoking weed with Merle earlier. He groaned and arched his back, he was about to finish, if he could just ride this one out before waking up properly…

Something wasn't right. His eyes flew open. Someone was crouched over him, sucking his cock. He shouted hoarsely and tried to jerk away, but a hand was clapped over his mouth. He struggled and landed a punch on the other's face, managing to scramble away and pull his pants up.

It was Roy, one of Merle's dealers, now moaning and clutching his nose as blood ran through his fingers.

"The fuck you doin'?" Daryl snarled. The bastard on the floor kept whimpering and moaning. He was bound to wake up someone, Merle, or worse, their dad. Daryl dragged Roy to his feet. He nearly killed him, there in that moment. Thought about smashing his nose so hard the bone fragments'd drive deep into his brain. He nearly did it, but then his whole body started shaking so hard he barely had the strength to throw Roy across the room, out the door. "I'll kill you," he whispered unevenly. "You come near me again, I'll fuckin' kill you, you son of a bitch." His door didn't have a lock on it so he dragged a chair over and wedged it under the knob. Then he collapsed on the floor, sick and shaking like he had the flu. _Son of a bitch son of a bitch son of a bitch… _

A bunch of sick fucks Merle ran around with sometimes, assholes who kicked their dogs, sadists who hit their women, and men who'd kill for just one more fix. But never nothing like this. Merle protected him, and his friends learned to leave Daryl alone or risk an asskicking. But this wasn't something he could tell Merle. Nobody. Never.

He wouldn't even dream anymore, not if his dreams gave way to fucked up reality. He'd drink himself blind every night if he had to, dull his mind into submission, never think those kinds of thoughts. It wasn't safe.

XX

"Maybe you oughta join up, son."

It was one of those rare days Daryl had dragged his ass to school. He was seventeen but hell if he knew what grade he was supposed to be in. He was failing everything. Now here he was, held back after math, listening to some old guy lecture him about his future.

"It's obvious you're not made for this," the teacher, Mr. Billings, said, waving his latest math test under his nose. 34%, and all of it dumb luck. "You get suspended one more time and you're expelled, you know that, right?"

Daryl shrugged.

"Trying to teach you is like talking to a brick wall. You're not smart, son, you're the dullest knife in the drawer."

I can track anything for miles, Daryl thought. I can shoot a crossbow or any kind of gun. I can hit a moving target from hundreds of feet away. I can fight. I can hotwire a car. I can rob you blind before you know what hit you.

"You're never going to graduate. Not if you repeated all four years."

"The hell I will," Daryl said.

"Join the army, son. It might be your last chance to straighten out."

"The hell for?" Daryl said. "Gulf War's been over for years."

"Son, do you even know where the Gulf is?"

Just cos he'd never left Georgia didn't mean he didn't know how to read a damn map. But fuck this guy.

"Florida," he said.

The teacher, Mr. Billings, shook his head. "Son, come here."

Daryl took one step.

"Closer."

Daryl folded his arms.

"Son, do you want to pass this class?"

"Can't," said Daryl.

"Maybe we could help each other." Mr. Billings unfastened his belt. "Make it worth my while, maybe you'll even graduate."

Daryl recoiled. He clenched his fists, his temper gone to boiling so fast his head was spinning. But he wasn't going to jail for killing some pathetic bastard. He wasn't. He backed away, one step at a time. At the door he stopped himself.

"The Gulf is in Iraq, you miserable fuck." He forced some saliva into his dry mouth and spat on the floor.

That night, him and Merle robbed the Billings house blind. They took candlesticks, jewelry, a TV. Merle got carried away and wanted to take Billings and his sad wispy wife hostage at gunpoint, but Daryl talked him out of it. Not worth going to jail. Let them wake up and find their house stripped. He took a piss on the living room carpet for good measure, though. Never went back to school.

XX

A few days after Merle left for good, his girlfriend – or whatever she was, the girl Merle went back to most often – came round the place looking for him.

"He ain't here," Daryl said, blocking her way past the porch. His dad was asleep inside, and Daryl meant to keep him that way.

"What do mean, he ain't here?" she, her name was Jodie, asked.

"Gone. Said somethin' about Florida."

"You mean he ain't comin' back?"

"Nope," Daryl said.

He watched her face crumple. He didn't mind her, Jodie, she had a loud laugh and could drink him under the table. Pretty, too, though he tried not to notice those things so much anymore. She didn't look so pretty now though, crying like that. She had her kid, Ellis, strapped to her back and he took up hollering too. Lungs like a fucking trumpet. Not Merle's. She'd got knocked up one of the times Merle was in prison. Merle hated the little bastard.

She just stood there crying.

Daryl swore. He lifted the kid off her back and held him like he'd seen her do. Little bastard screamed and pounded his fists against Daryl's shoulder, but Daryl shuffled around and bounced him a bit, and to his immense surprise Ellis shut up. Just lay there looking at him with big wet eyes. "Crazy little bastard," Daryl muttered.

Jodie wasn't crying as much now but she had snot running down her face so Daryl got his rag out and handed it to her. "Got a bottle or something?" He rummaged in her bag till he found the formula and managed to get the bottle in Ellis's mouth.

"You're good with him," Jodie said. "Sure you ain't got a kid somewhere?"

"Yep."

She wandered off towards the perimeter of the woods, resting her back against a big tree. Daryl followed her, keeping a tight hold on the baby and the bottle.

"He didn't say goodbye."

"That's Merle."

"He don't do goodbyes, huh?"

Daryl shook his head. The bottle was empty and Ellis's eyes were closing. He maneuvered out of his vest and laid it on the grass, then plopped the baby down for his nap.

"You ain't like your brother," Jodie said.

"I'm like him," Daryl said at once. "He's my brother. We're the same." He pulled out a cigarette, looked at the baby, thought better of it. He sat down next to Ellis and found a long stem to chew instead. She sat too, perching awkwardly and tugging at her skirt.

"How old are you?" she asked.

"Seventeen."

"You thinkin' 'bout leavin' home soon?"

"Any day now," Daryl said. "Go after Merle. Travel round some."

"Yeah." Jodie stared off into the distance. "You wanna fuck me, Daryl?"

"Huh?"

"You heard me."

"I…" Daryl fumbled stupidly. "You're Merle's girl. I don't-"

"I'm not Merle's anything. I'm tired and I'm angry and I want you to fuck me."

Daryl swallowed. She was pretty, but he knew better than to touch anything belonging to Merle. He knew better than to touch anyone, and he sure as hell didn't want anyone touching him.

And yet.

He hated himself for it. He hated himself for walking over to her and standing there like an ape. But when she stood up and grabbed his shoulders her hands were soft. He hadn't had anyone touch him with soft hands since the dead girl at the whorehouse and when he rubbed his face into the crook of her neck that skin was soft too.

She undid his belt. She reached under her skirt and stepped out of her underwear. He couldn't meet her eyes so he took her from behind, bracing them against the tree. He was afraid to hurt her but she slammed herself back against his thrusts so violently he nearly lost his balance. She dragged his hands to her neck and clamped them around her throat.

"…you doin'?" he gasped.

"Choke me," she panted. "Hard."

Shocked, Daryl disentangled their hands and stopped moving.

"Don't stop. Hit me," she demanded. She looked at him over her shoulder, her eyes wild and unfocused. "Grab my throat and slap me like your brother used to do."

"I ain't gonna hit ya, you crazy bitch."

"Slap my ass," she commanded. "Show me you mean business. Hit me!"

Daryl stumbled away from her. "Fuck's the matter with you?" he rasped. "I ain't never hit a girl."

She turned around. "'S what I like."

"Can't hit you," Daryl said, his chest rising and falling rapidly. He was dizzy, he couldn't get air into his lungs. "Can't hit you, can't-"

"Okay, okay, forget it." Jodie found her underwear and pulled them on. "Calm down, will ya?"

Daryl couldn't look at her. His knees buckled and he sat down heavily. He heard her approaching but he flinched anyway when she rested her hands on his shoulders. "I'm sorry, okay?" she said. Daryl squirmed away from her, locked into a sort of blind terror. He looked at the baby, who was blinking at him with wide, worried eyes. Daryl wanted to pick him up, but his hands were shaking too badly.

"BOY!"

He looked up. In the distance, he could see his father shambling out of the house, a bottle in his fist.

"Get outta here," he told Jodie. "Quick now. Go."

Head bowed, he walked back towards his father. The scars on his back burned in anticipation.


	2. straight to hell

_A/N - This is something of a "deleted scene" from S2 Ep 5, "Chupacabra." As always, I own nothing._

XX

"_What the hell happened? He's wearing ears."_

He was barely conscious, suspended between Rick and Shane, feet dragging in the dirt as they hauled him across the field. Hershel's house seemed to be moving farther and farther away, and he wished they'd just let him down, leave him to lick his wounds the old way. He felt a tug at his neck and cracked an eye open in time to see Rick stuffing his makeshift necklace away somewhere. "Let's keep that to ourselves." He'd have argued, but Shane was propelling them forward at a brutal pace that sent knives of agony down his side as the skin around his wound pulled and stretched. His head bounced against Rick's shoulder and the sensation of all those arms around him was suffocating, sickening. Dimmed by blood, his vision telescoped wildly, the farmhouse zooming into view and abruptly receding into a tiny pinprick off on the horizon.

The voices got louder. Andrea intoning some kind of apologetic litany. T-Dog asking "the fuck he wearing _ears _for?" Somebody, maybe Dale, admonishing everyone to keep calm. And then new voices joined the mix as Rick and Shane pulled him up the porch steps, new hands started plucking at him.

"What the hell happened to him?"

"Get him inside."

"Is he bit?"

"He's covered in blood."

"Is he bit?"

"No. Some sort of puncture in the side and a gunshot to the head."

"Oh my God, I shot Daryl. I shot Daryl. I can't believe I_ – _"

"Daddy, he's filthy. He should be hosed down first."

"Never mind, bring him to the other bedroom."

They were moving him again. He'd never set foot in the house before and didn't much care to now. He wanted to say that the daughter was right, they should leave him out here, when he woke up properly and got a bit of brandy inside him he'd sew the wound up himself. He didn't need these people, these self-righteous god-fearing salt-of-the-earth types him and Merle, mostly Merle, used to steal from sometimes. Merle… He could've sworn Merle had been there, but Merle was gone, long gone, and he'd hauled his own ass up out of that damn ravine, hadn't he?

One set of arms, the tight, vice-like python arms he knew to be Shane's, released him. He slumped against Rick, he didn't have a choice, his legs weren't responding.

"Lay him down here."

They heaved him onto the bed and Hershel's face swam into view. "Son?" he said. "Son, can you hear me?"

_I ain't your son_, he tried to say, _ain't nobody's, _but all that came out was a sort of hoarse grunt.

"He's still with us," Hershel said. "Everybody out. Maggie – hot water. Patricia – my kit."

Another whirl of activity. He must have blacked out again for a while, then a door slammed shut and it got a bit quieter.

"Rick, hold him down." That was Hershel's voice. "Shane, take that knife there and cut his shirt off him." He felt the blade slicing through the thin fabric of his singlet, and the synapses fired all at once, jolting his dulled brain into alertness. _Shirt. Back. Scars. Shane. _He reared back, feeling his elbow collide with someone's head, and a grunt of pain. Another blow and he sent Rick crashing into the dresser. Glass shattered. Daryl scrambled to his knees and looked around wildly for the next attack, but he was too slow. Shane had him in a headlock and he clawed uselessly at the immovable arm cutting across his windpipe. "Get yer filthy hands offa me you sonofabitch, I'll rip yer fuckin' head off."

"Shane, let him go." That was Rick.

"He's an animal." That was Shane, the bastard. "We oughta knock him out and tie him to the bed."

Daryl snarled and twisted furiously, but Shane was cutting off his air and dark spots were appearing before his eyes.

"_Shane._"

The pressure was gone and he collapsed back on the bed, gasping for air.

"I think you'd better leave." Hershel's voice. "He's taken against you and I can't have him causing himself further injury Or you, for that matter." A sound of disapproval. "You don't put a man with head trauma in a chokehold."

"You gonna be alright brother?" Shane's voice.

"We'll be fine." Rick. "Why don't you go on and see to Carol and the others."

Shane was gone.

"Don't you fuckin' touch me," he warned them.

"I won't have that language in my house," Hershel said.

"So throw me out. Don't need your help."

"Daryl." That was Rick again, voice of fucking reason. "Just let Hershel stitch you up, okay?"

It all came rushing back. He forced himself upright. "The doll – you got the doll?"

"Yeah, it was in your belt when-"

"Found it washed up on the shore. Damn horse threw me, sent me flyin' down the bank. Got stabbed through with my own goddam arrow. Sophia musta been nearby. I gotta go back, I mighta been real close-"

"Easy. Easy." Rick was talking to him like he might spook easy as that horse. "Shane and me, we'll check it out tomorrow-"

"No, not tomorrow, I gotta get back there _now, _before she gets far off-"

"Have you seen yourself, son?" That was Hershel, son-ing him again, making him want to throw every cuss word he knew in the stern old man's face. "You can't even see straight, let alone-"

"Enough. Daryl, you've gotta let Hershel clean you up. You're bleeding through."

Daryl looked down and saw blood leaking through his improvised bandage, staining the quilt below. Hurt like a motherfucker too. He hesitated. Shane was gone. He knew folks like Shane, had known 'em all his life. The toughs, the knuckleheads, the ones you couldn't show any sign of weakness or they'd be on you like a swarm of bees. Rick was different, sure, but he wasn't gonna open up and let him in on the truth, only to walk by someday and overhear him telling Lori, "Daryl's got daddy issues."

"Don't touch me," he warned them again.

"Is there something you're not telling me?" Rick's brows came together. "Are you bit? Scratched? I know you met walkers, you had their ears strung 'round your neck. _Are you bit_?"

"Ain't bit."

"If you're bit, we'll figure something out, but you gotta tell me the truth. Daryl. Did one of them-"

"No, I fuckin' told ya, I ain't bit! 'M fine. Don't need you fussin' over me like I'm-"

But now Rick had him by the shoulders, locking him into a sort of bear hug as he ripped at Daryl's shirt. Daryl scrabbled at Rick's chest but he couldn't get his arms free to fight him off. Rick ripped the shirt from his body and seconds later his grip slackened and he took a step back. He'd seen.

And Daryl folded. The adrenaline drained from him all at once, leaving him limp and useless. Let them look. What did it matter. Merle, if it really had been Merle, was right. He was nothing to them, just their fucking meal ticket and tracker boy. It didn't matter what they thought of him, if they thought he was some goddam pansy, he could take care of his own damn self. None of it fucking mattered. Daryl slumped back against the pillows. "Do what you gotta," he said.

"Hershel." Rick cleared his throat. "Can you give us a minute?"

"Keep him quiet," the old man warned. As he walked to the door, his brows contracted. Their eyes met and Daryl looked away before he could see any pity in Hershel's face. The door closed quietly behind him.

Hot shame was making Daryl's face burn. He hadn't wanted Shane to see because Shane was an asshole, but maybe it was worse with Rick, because if he was honest with himself, he knew he respected the man. And sometimes, when Rick asked his opinion about something, he felt the stirring of something almost like affection, a sentiment he'd only ever felt for his brother. But all that was over now.

He waited for Rick to break the silence, which was building between them into a deafening roar. And finally Rick did. "You're not bit."

"Nope."

More silence. Then: "I didn't know," Rick said. "Or I wouldn't'a-"

"You had to be sure," Daryl said tiredly. "Just doin' your job."

To his surprise, Rick sat next to him on the bed. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"Wasn't plannin' on it."

"None a'my business," Rick said. But then he ran a finger over Daryl's shoulder blade. "What's this?"

"The fuck you think it is?" Daryl snapped, shrugging Rick's hand off of him.

"The tattoo," Rick said.

Daryl narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but distracting Rick was probably the best deflection of his shame. "'S two demons wrestling," he said. "An angel and a devil but they look the same, see. Cos sometimes your better angel winds up being your devil, you know? Found that out early enough."

"Yeah." Rick sighed heavily. He traced his hand over a particularly vicious scar just missing the tattoo, and Daryl stiffened. "You get this before or after?"

Fuck, Daryl thought. So Rick's gonna play therapist now. "After," he said reluctantly. "On account."

The other man looked at him, not expectantly but with a direct, unpitying gaze. Daryl's tongue seemed to loosen of its own accord as his brain fought to hold it back. "Got it when I was sixteen," he said. "Sold some crystal Merle left behind to pay for it. Only turns out I wasn't the only one planning to hustle it. My pops got there too late. When he saw the tattoo, he chucked a bottle at my head. I came to, he'd tied me to a tree and he gave me a horsewhipping."

He enjoyed the flash of horror that crossed Rick's face. Rick's daddy had probably sat him down on his knee and gave him a sweet lil talking-to when he'd done wrong. Well, this was how the Dixons got it done and let Rick get an eyeful.

"You're lookin' a bit pale, Sherriff," he drawled. He took Rick's hand and clamped it to his back. The touch shot his nerves through, but hell, he got a sick satisfaction from it. "Those long ones, the ones that got a little flourish at the end, those are from a whip." He dragged the hand down. "The little ones, gave 'em to me with the belt. And these?" He ran Rick's hand over the puckered scars dotting his back like chickenpox. "I was my old man's favorite ash tray, liked to put 'em out on me when I was a kid." He flung Rick's hand away from him. "Bet you ain't never seen nothin' like that, Sherriff."

"You're right. I haven't," Rick said levelly.

"Bet it makes you want to puke, don't it?" Daryl taunted him. "Imagining that on your boy. But you'd never do that, would ya. See no evil, huh, Sherriff? There with the wife and kid, kiss each other goodnight and kumbay-fuckin-yah." He couldn't remember ever saying so much to Rick, or anybody, at once. But his mouth just kept on running itself. "Gonna ride me out on a rail now you know what it's like? Or why don't you take it up with _Shane_? I seen how the pair of you look at me, the way all y'all look at me, like the scum of the fuckin' earth. You don't wanna expose your people to that. Well, Sherriff, that's what survival looks like, what it looked like long before the Walkers ever turned up. Look me up when you've figured that out. We'll compare notes." He was out of breath.

"You done yet?" Rick asked.

"Yeah, I'm done," Daryl said.

"Don't know where you been, Dixon, but that's the biggest crock of shit I've heard in a long while." Rick pointed at him. "You shut up a minute. If you think those scars make me sick, you're right, they do. They make me sick cos you're one of us, and I don't like to see any of my people fucked with. Even if there's nothing I can do about it now." Daryl tried to interrupt but Rick cut him off again. "You think I don't want you around my wife, my son. Well, you gotta know that I'm proud for my boy to know you. Real proud. I want him to look at you and see-" Rick's voice cracked a bit – "I want him to look at you and realize that he's tougher than his circumstances. That's how I want him to live. It ain't me or Shane he should be looking up to. It's you. I want you to know that."

Daryl blushed. And he was blushing with something that wasn't shame or anger, but that odd, spiky affection he'd only ever felt for Merle. He ducked his head. "Your boy's scared shitless of me," he said.

"Good. He should be," Rick said. "He's been getting too much of a mouth on him lately, I'm glad there's still someone who can make him quake in his boots."

Daryl snorted and grinned in spite of himself. Rick grinned back. "You're a right peculiar man, Sherriff," Daryl said.

Silence fell between them again, but it was a more comfortable one this time. Daryl realized Rick was looking at him intently. "What?"

"Can I touch you?" Rick asked softly. Daryl tensed as Rick brushed his hand across the biggest scar.

"That one's an ugly bastard," Rick said. Outraged, Daryl glared at him. Rick grinned again. "And those?" His fingers found the burn marks. "You connect the dots, you got something that looks a lot like China. Geographically minded sadist, your old man."

"Doubt he knew where the fuck China is," Daryl grumbled. He'd never been teased like this before, without malice, and felt wrong-footed.

"And those." Rick tapped the belt-marks. "Abstract art's what you got there."

"Fuck off!" But he couldn't stop the corners of his lips turning up. He never would've dreamed of finding humor in his scars, but here he was, him, laughing at them, with a _cop _of all fucking people. He found he didn't mind Rick's hand resting on his bare shoulder so much anymore. It was warm and steady, didn't give him the shakes or make him want to knock Rick's teeth out.

"So how 'bout you let Hershel patch you up?" Rick said at last. "You look like shit, probably feel like it too."

Daryl curled his lip.

"You almost died today," Rick said. "Twice. I need you back quick, can't do without you for long." His face sobered. "Sophia needs you too," he added softly. "You're her only chance now. I shouldn't say that but it's the truth."

Daryl nodded.

Rick nodded too, and got to his feet.

"Rick." Daryl held his gaze. "You won't tell anyone what you saw, will ya, or the things I said? Like to keep that between us."

"You have my word." Rick held out his hand.

_Take your friend Rick's hand. _Daryl blinked Merle away and clasped Rick's hand.

"Now you cooperate for Hershel and do everything he says," Rick ordered. "We got work to do."

As Rick left, Daryl was shaken with the power of a realization. Suddenly he knew this was the man he'd follow straight to hell, and back again, if there was ever anything to return to.

XX

_A/N - any Rickyl is what you read into it._


	3. you ain't goin' nowhere

_A/N - mentions of assault and abuse, please proceed accordingly. Thank you for reading and reviewing. Special thanks to 15 for such encouraging feedback! It's all much appreciated. As always, I own nothing. _

XX

He heard the sound of retching, interspersed with short dry sobs, and growled deep in his throat. These people. He was going madder than a March hare, stuck on the farm and ordered not to exert himself. Only his promise to Rick was keeping him from saddling up one of Hershel's horses and careening back into the woods. But these fuckin people. Someone was always crying, or puking, or saying they were hungry, or, in Shane's case, poking the hornet's nest, and it was only a matter of time –

Goddammit.

He crawled out of his tent and squinted into the sunlight. He followed the sounds away from the camp and there she was behind a tree, Lori, Mrs. Sherriff, down on her knees beside the remains of the badger he'd bagged that morning. (Rick had been pissed; "ain't no exertion to pull a trigger, Sherriff.")

"Not good enough for you?" he demanded roughly, and Lori started, luckily falling back on her ass instead forward into her puke. "Well, lady, beggars can't be choosers."

"No, it was fine, it was-" she faltered. "I'm grateful, really-"

She was a bit pale, but unlike the rest of the raggedy scarecrows in their group, this woman was almost glowing with health. Well, maybe not health, but glowing with something.

"Aw hell," he said, as it hit him.

"What is it? What's the matter?" Her head whipped around and her hand went to the gun shoved, stupidly, he thought, down the back of her jeans. These people were dumb enough to blow an ass cheek off any day of the week.

"Ain't no walker," he said. "You're knocked up, ain't you?"

The expression on her face. He almost laughed, but this was Mrs. Sherriff and he owed Mr. Sherriff.

"Did Glenn tell you?" Lori demanded.

"Chinatown? He the daddy?"

"Stop it."

"He didn't say nothin'." Daryl relented. "Seen you upchucking a perfectly good bit'a badger, figured something was goin' on."

She drew up her legs and rested her face against her knees.

"You should bury that," he told her, finding a stick and raking leaves and grass over her puke. "Attracts the animals. And worse."

"Thank you," she said stiffly.

"So." He stared down at her. "It Shane's?"

She was on her feet in an instant, almost nose-to-nose with him. "You don't know what the hell you're talking about, Daryl Dixon."

He was the one to step back, her sudden proximity was too intimate. But he was feeling argumentative and put-upon, pissed at himself for stepping in someone else's shit, and determined to let her have it. "Picked up your trail back at the quarry sometimes," he said. "Out hunting. Your footprints… Shane's footprints… Nice little two-step tango you had goin' there, straight to some sweet little dell where you bedded down. Scent scared off all the deer, probably."

Lori looked stricken. "Everyone knows then," she whispered.

"Just tellin' you what I saw. Ain't talked to nobody about it." He spat on the dirt. She looked at him with narrowed eyes. "What would you do?"

This was the longest conversation they'd ever had.

"Me?"

"Do you see anybody else?" She was dogged, Mrs. Sherriff.

"I'd fuckin' cut it out," he said, to shut her up. She blanched, but she nodded like he'd confirmed something she'd been thinking all along. Daryl was about to turn on his heel, wanting no more part in it, when he paused, remembering Rick's hand on his shoulder. How it had been gentle on his skin and how he hadn't minded it resting there. Then he thought about Carl, and how he was supposed to be some kind of damn role model for the kid now. "I want him to look up to you," Rick had said.

He looked at Lori, standing with her shoulders hunched, arms wrapped around herself. "Then again," he said. "Then again maybe I'd keep it."

"But _I don't even know whose baby this is_," she hissed, looking at him like he'd betrayed her.

Daryl looked at her incredulously. "You stupid, woman?"

"Excuse me?" Her eyes were flashing, dangerous.

"It's Rick's baby."

"I told you, I don't know. It could be Rick's, or it could be -"

"Don't matter." Daryl didn't understand why she was being so thick. "S'Rick's baby, either way."

"That's not a DNA test, Daryl."

He was getting pissed. "Don't you get it? You choose to have that kid, it's Rick's."

"But what's the point?" she intoned. "What's the point – of bringing a child into-"

"You go down that rabbit hole, lady, ain't much point to anythin'. Way I see it, we're stuck on this borin'-ass farm that your husband seems dead-set on hangin' round, and you got Doctor Vet up there in the big house… Got as good a chance as any."

It was a lengthy speech, by Dixon standards. Daryl blushed. He didn't know why he'd said any of it, not like he gave a damn anyway, especially when they'd obviously be better off without a goddam baby in tow. Stupid.

"Daryl…" Lori began.

"Ain't none'a my business. Do what ya want." He stomped off, the sharp pain in his side reminding him of the last time he'd gone out of his way for someone else's family. He was a goddam idiot, he was.

XX

One time he was rummaging through Merle's pack looking for a missing hunting knife. The knife wasn't there, but he found a nice little joint carefully wrapped in plastic. He wasn't much for it, usually, anything that dulled his reflexes was a liability, but he was bored and pissed at Merle for ditching him in this crummy roadside motel while Merle went to "see an associate 'bout somethin'." So he lit up and smoked it down, occasionally spitting out seeds and bits of bud.

Then a switch flipped in his brain and he went mad. Every nerve fired up with rage. He broke everything in that motel room, smashing the furniture to splinters, ripping the upholstery to shreds with his spare knife. Then he punched through the bathroom mirror, immune to the jagged shards of glass that sliced his hands open. Finally he turned on the window, violently shattering every pane with his fists until his knuckles were bloody and bruised. Feeling invincible, he ran at the wall so hard his head rebounded off the wood and he knocked himself out.

When he came to, Merle was laughing his head off. "You got dusted by the angels, baby brother!" Merle howled. "An' they sent you off hoppin' down the bunny hole." He wagged his finger in Daryl's face. "Serves you right, snoopin' through your brother's belongings."

By now the pain had caught up, and Daryl's hands were broken, useless. He had an egg-sized lump on his forehead and could still feel his nerves thrumming with adrenaline. But Merle got him nice and drunk on cheap tequila and eventually whatever had possessed him slipped away and left him docile and stupid.

XX

Fourteen, he landed in the hospital. At first he couldn't remember how he got there. He'd been stumbling down the road in the dark, spitting out blood and molars. Next thing he knew, he was lying in a strange bed with a needle in his arm, feeling like he'd been through a cement mixer.

He turned his head to the side and was hit by such a strong wave of nausea that his stomach heaved and he puked half on the pillow and half on the floor. Then he blacked out again.

When he came to, his head was resting on a clean pillow and the mess had vanished. This time he knew better than to move quickly. Slowly, deliberately, he tested one body part after another. Legs – fine. Gut – queasy but fine. Chest – he winced as he inhaled. Okay. Ribs fucked up. Left arm – in a sling. Broken maybe, he wasn't sure. Right arm – hooked up to the IV, but otherwise – fine. Head – Christ. He was almost sick with the pain of it. Concussion, probably. Broken nose too. This ain't the worst, he told himself. Hell, he was alive.

He let his eyes rove around the room. Machines, little pinpricks of light, blue, green, red. Out in the hall, fluorescent lights and a sign saying "Trauma Center." Through a flimsy partition, he could see the bed next to him, the outline of a body. The clock on the wall said 3:15.

He drifted, and suddenly a nurse was beside him, adjusting the bandage on his head. Daryl flinched.

"Awake? Good. Can you tell me your name?"

"Daryl Dixon." His throat was sore, like he'd been yelling.

"Date of birth?" He told her. She had long dreadlocks, twisted into an elaborate knot at the back of her head, and shorter ones framed her smooth, oval face. His old man or Merle would've said something nasty by now, but Daryl thought she was pretty.

"Do you remember how you got here?"

He started to shake his head, but froze when the dizziness hit. "No," he croaked.

"A truck driver spotted you lying in the middle of the road. You're lucky he saw you, or you'd be lying in the morgue instead'a this bed here. He called the ambulance. You want the rundown?"

"Hit me," Daryl said.

She frowned at him, but consulted his chart anyway. "You got a skull fracture. Caused by blunt force trauma. You're lucky it's a linear fracture, it'll heal on its own. Nasty concussion, but the scan didn't show any internal bleeding or brain damage. Broken nose. Fractured rib, but that'll heal itself too if you do as you're told and take it easy. And a broken wrist." She looked at him appraisingly. "And you probably don't know where none a'that came from," she said.

"Nope," Daryl said flatly. Christ, he was fucked up good and proper this time.

"Can you remember what hit your head?"

He closed his eyes. The house was dark, and the huge bearlike shadow was looming over him. He was already down by then, clutching his bleeding nose and teasing a loose molar with his tongue. Then a flash of glass, and a clunk so loud it sounded like a cartoon effect.

"Bottle'a Jack," he told her, taking an odd pride in his precision. "Three-quarters full, ma'am."

"And I s'pose you broke it over your own head, did you?"

"That's right, ma'am."

"Don't ma'am me, you insolent little shit." Daryl grinned at that, or tried to, his bruised lips put up a helluva fight. He liked her. Suddenly he wished she'd lean down and put her arms around him. He didn't much like arms around him, he'd learned better of it, but he wished this woman would hold him tight and be his momma for a moment. His eyes burned and stung. He squeezed them shut. After a moment he felt her stroke his hot forehead and smooth the hair around the bandage. "What, you can't take a little teasing?" she asked gently.

Daryl was afraid to open his eyes, on account of the ocean building up behind them. He just grunted when she told him she'd be back on her next round, and kept his eyes tight shut until it passed and he could let the pent-up tears run down his face without emotion. He figured he'd best get mad to stop it happening again, so he thought about Merle. Fuckin Merle, absent as usual, taken off with his biker gang to raise hell in Atlanta, leaving him to take it when the old man got sloshed and pissed. Not that he needed Merle to protect him. He got a few good punches in, one to the shoulder and one to the beergut, before his nose got broke and things started going fuzzy. He remembered his da tossing him down the porch steps, where he'd landed in a bloody heap, and somewhere after that he musta taken himself off down the road...

"So they picked you off the road too?"

He started, and his head punished him for it with a wave of nausea that he fought down successfully this time. The voice, raspy and female, came from the other side of the curtain.

"Who's there?" he said. He watched the silhouette move, sliding off the bed towards the partition. After a second, she slipped around it.

Just a girl, maybe a little older than him. Long hair. He couldn't make out a face in the dark.

"Me, asshole," she said. Daryl squinted. She sat down at the foot of his bed and he jerked compulsively, sending another shock of pain through his body. "Sorry," she said. "Do you mind?"

Then he was blinded. He threw his arm up over his eyes, nearly dislodging the IV. Finally she moved the flashlight away from his face and he blinked furiously. "You look like shit," she said.

"So do you," he snapped back automatically.

"Do I?" She turned the flashlight on her own face. He saw smooth dark skin and wide brown eyes. She had her hair done up into hundreds of tiny braids.

"Not really," he said.

"Look closer." She pulled aside the neck of her hospital gown, and he saw bruises blooming all round her throat. Then she showed him her wrists, which were chafed and bruised as well.

"Fuck," Daryl said, beginning to be afraid of something he couldn't quite, or didn't quite want to wrap his mind around.

"You got that right, Daryl Dixon," she said. "Always nice to meet a fellow piece'a road kill."

"Yeah," he said, taken aback by her unexpected chattiness. She settled herself more comfortably on his bed.

"Heard them bring you in," she went on. "Dead to the world. Thought you were a goner, but I guess you got off easy, didn't ya, just a cracked head and a coupla broke bones."

_Easy_? "I'm fucked up real good, bitch," he said roughly. "Ain't much good now, am I? Can't move without pukin' my guts out."

"Ohhh, poor lil baby," she cooed. "Poor little bird."

"Shaddup," he said. "What happened to you? You get run over?"

She ignored him. "Who was it?" she asked. "Your daddy? Your uncle? Your step-daddy? I'm guessin' your daddy, since you weren't namin' any names."

He didn't have anything to say to that. "So what happened to you?" he asked instead.

"Aw, you're an innocent, baby," she said. "Don't you know what happens when a girl like me's walkin' home late at night and runs into a bunch'a racist redneck sonsabitches? You got any idea what kinda shit goes down then?"

He shook his head. Nodded.

"When they were through, they left me on the road, same as you."

He nodded. The pounding in his was receding, guiltily, cos maybe he _had _got off easy. Merle always said –

"I'll show you mine if you show me yours." Her voice interrupted his reverie.

"Huh?"

"What I said." Daryl didn't realize what she was doing until she shrugged out of her hospital gown and was suddenly naked on the bed next to him. He froze. "… the hell?" he croaked.

"I'll go first," she said. The flashlight was back on, and she trained it on her neck, giving him another look at the ring of bruises. Then she moved the light down to her chest. Her right breast looked painfully swollen and bruised. Daryl couldn't look away. His first up-close pair of breasts, and they were making him want to cry instead of get hard. Then she ghosted the light over her belly, and he saw the finger-impression bruises covering her hips. He let out a strangled sob. Merle said sometimes girls acted like they didn't want it so you had to get a little rough with them before they got into it. But this couldn't have been what Merle meant, surely, cos it was the worst thing he'd ever seen. _Racist redneck sonsabitches. _He wondered if he was one of them. For the first time, he was afraid of himself. He'd never thought of himself as dangerous before. He'd rather never touch a woman, ever, than have anything to do with something like this. Damn Merle, he would swear to it, he'd never lay so much as a finger –

"Okay, your turn," she said, businesslike, unmoved.

He shifted feebly, wincing as he tried to raise his left arm. So she undressed him, maneuvering his arm out of the sleeve and pulling the gown away from his body. He averted his eyes as she ran the flashlight over him appraisingly. It wasn't just today's beating, it was years of scars and cigarette burns and bruises that never seemed to fade. The best he could say for himself was that he didn't have a hard-on to make her think he was getting off on this.

"Bet if I turned you over, it'd be even worse, huh?" she asked.

"Yep."

She flicked off the light. "Sorry, Daryl."

He nodded, slowly. "Sorry, um - ?"

"Missy."

"Sorry, Missy."

"You and me gotta get outta here, Daryl," she said brusquely. "Me – there's no point in waitin' for the cops. They'd find a way to turn it round and decide I was some hooker askin' for it, and land my ass in jail. And you? You know what's gonna happen in the morning, don't you?"

"What?"

"Social workers are gonna come, Daryl. Gonna ask you about daddy, ask you about home. Put you in foster 'fore the day's out. That sounds better, fine, your choice, but you're askin' me, I'd say it's better to stick with the devil you know."

Daryl looked at her. His da and Merle were all he got. Him and Merle, they couldn't be separated or he'd be nothing. Nothing without Merle. He nodded slowly again. "But-" The weight of his predicament hit him. "Dunno if I can stand up, got this fuckin' thing in my arm, my clothes are gone-"

"I'll get you out. Trust me?" Carefully, she took his right hand and placed it on the curve of her waist. His breath hitched. Amazed at his own boldness, he slid his hand up her side and rested his palm against her swollen breast. She flinched a little, but set her hand over his, holding it against her. His belly felt warm and he wanted to dissolve into her.

Finally she sighed. She bent down and kissed him, first on the forehead and then, ever so gently, on the lips. Then she was off the bed, on her feet. "Time to go," she said. He was dazed, half-hard, bereft, close to tears again.

She slipped back to her side and reemerged a moment later, wearing her own dress and boots. Then she rummaged in the cupboard across from Daryl's bed and retrieved his clothes. They were torn and bloody, fit only to be thrown out.

"I got this, Daryl. Hope you don't mind goin' commando." Patiently, she worked his jeans up his legs and helped him button and zip. His shirt was too gory to bother with, so she draped the hospital gown around his shoulders for cover. "I'm gonna pull out the IV now."

She hoisted him to his feet. He thought he was gonna throw up on her and he fought it, swallowing rapidly until he could breathe easy. After the first step it was better, and after the next he was steady enough to walk on his own. They slipped down the hallway, past the empty nurses' station, and finally out the door into the cool air of the pre-dawn night.

"Good luck Daryl." She kissed him, left cheek, right cheek, mouth, forehead. "I doubt we'll be seein' each other again."

Before he could blink, she had released him and vanished into the night. He saw a half-full pack of cigarettes lying abandoned on the ground. Slowly, agonizingly, he crouched down and retrieved it. Lit one with a match from his pocket. He inhaled as deeply as his cracked rib would let him, and blew a jet of smoke into the air. Then he turned his steps toward home, knowing the old man would be passed out cold by now. Daryl could put a bullet between his eyes and he'd never even know he was dead.

But he wouldn't do it. "Leave the old man to me," Merle always said, and Daryl was still dumb enough to believe him.

He hobbled down the road, pausing when his head got too spinny, and lighting a new cigarette from the embers of the first. Three miles. Two miles. Not long now. He was tough, Daryl was. He knew he'd get home, and eventually he did, before the sun had broke over the trees.

Girl was right though. He never saw her again.

XX

_A/N - got a PM about music titles, and also, to cover my ass, here are the music title credits:_

_Story title and Chapter 1 title from "Up the Wolves," performed by The Mountain Goats, written by J. Darnielle._

_Chapter 2 title from "Straight to Hell," performed by The Clash, written by J. Strummer._

_Chapter 3 title from "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" performed/by B. Dylan.  
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